Preliminary findings from a Swiss-Nepalese research project

The role of social mobile media on education and learning in developing countries

Sebastian Linxen & Christoph Pimmer - Institute for Information Systems - University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

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Background & Research Approach

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Technology-enhanced medical education & Millenium-Development Goals

Poor education of health professionals

Inadequately skilled health staff is seen as a typical system constraint that negatively impacts on the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (Travis et al., 2004)

Lack of basic knowledge

For example: 3 in 4 doctors caring for sick children in district hospitals in Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda had poor basic knowledge of leading causes of child death (HIFA Report, 2010)

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Role of technology: Great hopes

Technology might take a crucial role in improving education and practice of health workers (Pakenham-Walsh, Priestley, & Smith, 1997)

Increasing number: 4.7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions in 2009 (The World Bank, 2011)

Techno-centric approaches

“We will literally take tablets and drop them out of helicopters," and return a year later to see if the effort was a success” Negroponte

Poor results to date

projects have not met the expectations to date (Kraemer, Dedrick, & Sharma, 2009)

Little progress in meeting the information needs of frontline healthcare providers and ordinary citizens in low resource settings. (Smith & Koehlmoos, 2011)

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Guiding question and methods

Guiding question

How is technology used to support the learning of post- and undergraduate students in the context of Nepalese medical education?

Methods

Case study approach

Focus groups (post/undergraduates, teachers, faculty)

On-site visit, informal talks with university management and ICT support

Selective analysis of a Facebook site indicated as relevant

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Facebook and mobiles as a driver for using the internet

"Most of us use Facebook" […] "Almost every student uses Facebook" (Group 5)

"All day. Every day. It’s an addiction." (Group 5)

"We use mobile phones for Facebook". (Group 2)

"The reason why most of the people have activated the internet on their SIM card is because of Facebook." (Group 4)

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (1)

Students:

“A group “Medical profession, I love it.” That’s a group. I’m part of the group. […] It’s created by our seniors [senior doctors]

Teachers:

“We share a lot of medical information on facebook. We share videos. And sometimes some of our friends get free downloads of books. So we share that. Facebook is a good medium to share much medical information”.

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (2)

Facebook community: «Medical Profession, wow I love it»

34529 members & 3078 FB users are talking about this (17.11.2011)

Regional scope on Nepal and India

Quizzes with open and closed questions:

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (3)

Mini-Cases:

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (4)

Electronic Books and Videos:

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (5)

Jokes as an expression of professional identity:

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Appropriation of Facebook as a learning tool (6)

Health-related questions from patients:

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Preliminary Findings

Social media accessed by mobiles as a rich source of learning

Wide range of knowledge: cognitive to socio-cultural dimensions

Range of different actors engaged (senior professionals, students and patients)

A few “contributors” (senior doctors), many “commenters” and “lurkers”

Knowledge created and discussed “bottom up” and not distributed by central authorities

Social mobile media (and more in general mobile internet) increases the agency of learners

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Acknowledgements

The work presented was supported by the SDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the KFH, the Rector’s Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences.

Grateful thanks also go to our Swiss and Nepalese research partners, and the study participants, students and teachers, for the insightful interviews and their critical feedback.

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